Categories

Categories

Search for:

Stolen Fruitcake: Weird but True!

My grandma died December 16, 1964. I was devastated. She was always accepting of me and seemed not to notice my faults. She had mailed her Christmas gifts to us the morning of the evening of her death. The box arrived two or three days after her funeral. It was a macabre feeling, being anxious to find out what she’d sent, knowing she was in her grave.

We rallied and had a wonderful Christmas. The gifts had special meaning, knowing they’d be the last. I still have a tiny jewelry box from that year. My poor brother managed to turn this sad situation into a mess. Grandma had included a small fruit cake in a red tin box. Mother put it up, intending to serve it on a special occasion. Well, my brother Bill must have had a special occasion of his own. Mother found the empty fruitcake can hidden in his room, not a crumb left.

She was furious! He had eaten her dead mother’s fruitcake……….the last gift she’d ever sent. He lived to regret his theft. She didn’t let him forget it for weeks, getting weepy every time she saw the shiny red box, sitting in a place of honor on the table.

This is probably the only documented story of anyone ever actually eating a fruitcake!

What I want to know is who still has the red tin, mother? or brother or you.
Call me weird but I like fruit cake. My mom used to make it every Christmas. I don’t know if it’s an Italian Thing or not but there is was every year. I also like Fruit Stolen, my dad was German and that was also a Christmas cake. I guess I would have to admit here that I like cake. :o)

I can sympathize with your loss and the strange scenario afterward, but I imagine your grandmother had a joyous time preparing for your family’s presents and actually getting them off in the mail. No doubt she was satisfied with her gift.

Uh oh. Now, I have some questions. Does your brother still eat (even like???) fruitcake? Or is his guilt so enormous he feels slightly nauseated at the thought of all that gooey, weird fruit, that sticks to his teeth, and possibly tints his tongue green? Or maybe he buys one every year that he doesn’t eat, in honor of his horrible crime? (or so he says, cause really. WHO likes fruit cake.) 🙂

Oh my ~ That was really sad for your mother, I feel her pain. Brothers can be so insensitive without a clue, I know, I have 3 of them 😦 On a lighter note that is the first time I have ever heard of unrequited fruit cake. (Sorry, I had to do it).

This reminds me of a saying my Mum always used when we broke something, “Oh! That was the last thing Granny gave me”, it always intensified my guilt. It was years before I realized that every single thing couldn’t possibly have been the last thing!

A friend of mine use to leave making her cake until the last week or so before Christmas, and her son came in one evening to find it cooling on a wire tray prior to marzipan and icing. He cut himself a hefty slice and went to bed.
On Christmas Day, the completed cake had pride of place on the table, minus a wedge. Her son asked for a piece, and saying No, she pointed to the gap and said he’d already had his!